Every Shankar film, ranked

Shankar wasn’t the first Tamil filmmaker to mix animation and live action in a song sequence. SP Muthuraman got there with the Rajinikanth-starrer Raja Chinna Roja, in 1989. But see the two music videos today, and you see the difference between a safe, efficient filmmaker and one with balls-out vision and drive. The Raja Chinna Roja song imagines the Superstar with a bunch of children, in a forest, as Disney-esque animals scamper around them. The most that happens is that they get trapped in a fire, which is put out by an enterprising elephant. Cute is the word that comes to mind. Or saccharine, if you’re more of a grouch. But Chiku buku rayile, from Gentleman, is something else. Prabhu Deva opens his jacket and sends hearts to Gautami. She squishes them like you’d clap a mosquito dead. He shoots arrows at her with his eyes. She drops one of them in a dustbin. He then sheds giant, comical tears, that plop on the ground with a tiny splash. Many words come to mind. Overkill. Overreaching. Tacky. But also: Fun. Crazy. Unexpected. Larger than life. Like nothing else out there.

That’s Shankar for you. Someone who’s always out to wow you. Someone whose imagination has always exceeded what the practical realities of Indian budgets and effects houses can give him – but also someone who doesn’t let this stop him. He’s someone who wants to build the Taj Mahal with bricklayers. And someone who’s utterly unapologetic about his reputation as a size-matters showman. To understand why all of this is a good thing, we have to consider the two kinds of filmmakers that have made their name (and subsequently become legends) in Tamil cinema. On the one hand, you have the “classy” filmmakers: Sridhar, K Balachander, Bharathiraja, Balu Mahendra, Mahendran, Mani Ratnam… They were all mainstream filmmakers, of course, and perhaps you could label them “commercial”, too, for they did have many hits. But their aesthetic was governed by a kind of narrative artistry, not spectacle.

On the other hand, we have the out-there entertainers, the directors who wanted to show you the seven wonders of the world for the price of a movie ticket. You’d begin, of course, with SS Vasan. His Chandralekha (1948) came with hundreds of giant drums, on which hundreds of dancers danced, and from inside which hundreds of rebel soldiers emerged at the end. A few years later, he produced (but did not direct) Avvaiyaar, where hundreds of elephants overcame hundreds of soldiers and brought down a fort. But these films still fell under the mythology/fantasy rubric, where larger-than-life was the way of life. If a movie was set in Indra’s realm, as Manaalaney Mangaiyin Baagyam (1957) was, or if it was set in Shiva’s abode, as Thiruvilaiyaadal (1965) was, the pomp and pageantry wasn’t just expected, but necessary. What about BR Panthulu, you ask? He didn’t make only mythology/fantasy, and yet, his films were still big. But Veerapandiya Kattabomman (1959) and Kappalottiya Thamizhan (1961) were still historical epics, not contemporary stories. Even the genie in a “social” story like Pattanathil Bootham (1964) isn’t just expected but necessary, owing to its roots in the Arabian Nights.

To get to the forebears of Shankar, we have to consider directors who sought out spectacle in “regular” (as opposed to historical or mythological or folklore/fantasy) films.

I felt kaadhalan deserved a better place than nanban….atleast for the way Shankar shaped the villain and his equation with the Girish Karnad’s character. And IMO Boys is much more inventive than Anniyan bit in terms of Shankar-isms, the latter Trump’s the former. Anyhoo, the article is G.L.O.A.T (Greatest Lists Of All Time).

Felt a little sad about the low rating for Sivaji. It has its flaws but it’s an enjoyable movie. But on looking at the list, I see that it can’t displace any of the other movies above it. Good judgement indeed. Totally agree with Mudhalvan’s ranking! Excellent character development in that movie and a story that just keeps building from the start, a true Big Movie TM 🙂

I think, Nanban being a remake and dare I say not as innovative as his other films, (well, because he didn’t come up with it) could’ve just been avoided being in the list or maybe just a special mention or something. ‘I’ was plain horrible. It was long by at least 30 mins, not one single outstanding or quirky track from ARR and honestly some serious cringe in the name of comedy (Oh when will our filmmakers learn to write a decent part for a LGBTQ character).

I prefer anniyan above all because i have seen it before gentleman or indian.use of mpd in masala mode is so much fun and vikram is terrific to watch and i think the social stuff was more effective than in indian or mudhalvan.after anniyan,i prefer indian,then enthiran,mudhalvan,gentleman..jeans was fine for me..sivaji,kadhalan and boys are average with some fun bits here and there(the basic plot of kadhalan is too bad..but just watching those songs will give you a high)..nanban deserve no comment as it is not at all a shankar film..and I was bad in almost every way,save for vikram and arr,there was nothing in it..and it is the first time shankar left me totally disappointed..i hope the same doesn’t happen in 2.0..the teasers and trailer are a bit disappointing

What you see from the list is that he has put out a lot of dross for someone who is lauded as one of tamil cinema’s leading directors. A very bar-belled portfolio – some excellent work amidst many terrible cringe-inducing films. What is your expectation of a post-Sujatha Shankar experience? “I” was a terrible film, but that’s a small sample.

Do like all of the top 3 and could probably watch them even today. I would probably rank Endhiran right at the top because it grappled with the concept of superhuman intelligence in a robot long before it became the subject of almost every other article in biz mags/papers. We’re talking today about what autonomous weapons could unleash on human civilization but in a way – and presenting it in a simple, digestible format for the mass audience – Endhiran anticipated this with the robot that is able to think and decide for itself. And ultimately has to self destruct to save the planet. A chilling warning. If the visuals didn’t always get there, conceptually Endhiran was right up there with Hollywood sci fi films. A good, nay pretty good, deal better than the overrated pile of blue called Avatar, if I may. Shankar’s crowning glory. And that he hasn’t tasted any real success since then may not portend well for 2.0 (though Rajni is pretty much the too big to fail of Indian cinema).

Ah, another reason I liked Endhiran is it offered a welcome respite from Shankar’s obsession with vigilantism. To have so many films, starting with the first, about vigilantes is bad enough, worse still to glorify them. Not that he is alone by any means in that as far as our cinema goes but Gentleman, Indian, Anniyan, just how many vigilantes are we supposed to take.

Thankfully Boys isnt ranked last. Barring the negatives that BR has mentioned, the rest of the movie made for an entertaining watch. Those infamous A-jokes were all part of regular college lingo and there was no need for all the outrage that happened when it released. (I think Vikatan even refused to rate it citing it as a bittu padam or kanraavi padam something)

I personally like Indian more than Enthiran because Indian was a stunner when it released – those were the times of Ullathai Allithaa, Nattamai & even high-budget movies like Love Birds were low in concept. This was a complete masala package with foreign locales, prosthetic makeup, kangaroos, imported heroines, a rousing flashback where Netaji shook hands with Kamal, Sujatha in supreme form, some smooth comedy, music videos and what not! The heroine portions too worked as the ladies werent the usual ramba, meena, roja but Urmila fresh from Rangeela & a luminescent Manisha with an unrecognizable Sukanya too. (I squealed in the theater when the paati became Sukanya – it was a revelation to poor me!! )

Enthiran – one knew what to expect & the expectations were met with aplomb, no doubt But it was a given – one knew the film was going to knock your socks off. Whereas Indan was unexpected – the first of its kind back then.

Bang on list BR! Mudhalvan is his best period. Love the interview scene. Raghuvaran was in lovely form. And great dialogues too! Shankar’s films up until Mudhalvan would be entertaining with just the audio!

How did Shankar’s dialogues deteriorate so much in his later films? Each dialogue in Mudhalvan has some punch and energy. Shame it turned so stale off late.

“I” had me wondering if Shankar could make a decent film without Sujatha. Forget things like screenplay structure, characterization, etc. On a fundamental level it simply wasn’t fun or interesting. Even the fight scenes and songs were underwhelming. It felt like the mediocrity of Vikram’s films in this era bled into “I.”

Comedy was never Shankar’s strong suit. In this regard he is about the same as other Tamil directors of his generation.

“Enthiran” is my favorite of Shankar’s films. Yes, the Aish scenes not having to do with the robot are boring, but they’re not interminable, and her character is pivotal to the plot. And even the pre-bad-Chitti action scenes (like the one on the train), are entertaining. IMO it’s the most tightly written of his films. It didn’t even make any obvious concessions to Rajini’s image. No big intro shot or song. And seeing Rajini in villain mode again was a real treat. Hopefully Shankar understood that what made “Enthiran” work were the emotions and ideas at its core, and didn’t just overload “2.0” with CGI setpieces.

I hated “Boys.” It should have been a fun romp, but Shankar had to weigh it down with all that melodrama. It felt like an old-timer’s attempt at making a film for the youth, with an unyouthful sensibility.

Wonderful piece. Thanks for a lovely read. My favourite Shankar film remains Indian followed by Enthiran, Sivaji and Mudalvan/Anniyan/Gentleman. His films maybe loud and melodramatic but boy does he have imagination and vision. He knows the pulse of the South Indian audience (not just Tamil) and they just lap it up. I hope 2.0 does well and he gets the recognition across India that he deserves. I think he is underrated and hasn’t quite managed to ‘make it’ in the north.

I could never understand why he did ‘3 Idiots’ in Tamil though. Unless he was forced to or was paid a lot of money and he let his assistants do the job. There was also a time in the noughties when Shankar was producing a lot of small-budget movies which were pretty good and offbeat. Guess he has stopped doing that now.

Shankar came at a time when someone had to think out of the box. Not for the sake of it but because he believed in it. And boy, did he not do it in a grand way. To this day, don’t really think anyone is attempting to catch his space. He seems to be revolving up there with each movie getting more and more big, audacious.

Raja Chinna Roja (July, 1989) was made very soon after Who Framed Roger Rabbit (June, 1988), the first film to combine cartoons with real actors. Tech transfer from Hollywood to Kollywood in just one year flat. Can you beat it? Grand vision, great execution.

And it was, yes, a cute song. What else to expect in a movie with lots of kids running around? It was a summer release, remember.

I don’t think we need to snatch something from SP Muthuraman and dole it to Shankar. Both of them can do good without that.

I love Mudhalvan (agree with you that as far as political fairy tales go, it is the best one ever made in these parts) and really like Gentleman and Indian. Raghuvaran’s performance in M is one of my all time faves and Arjun really held his own (seriously underrated actor IMO). Mudhalvan, Gentleman and Indian made for riveting viewing and I was surprised at how effective the emotional beats were (assuming that was Sujatha). But that said, I just don’t get the Shankar love here. He is like a big, ungainly, juvenile delinquent let loose in one of those treasure filled caves from the Arabian Nights. I keep expecting someone to haul him up in chains for squandering such enormous sums of money for no discernible purpose other than large scale schlock and cringe – inducing tackiness. Terms like ‘vision’, ‘creativity’ and ‘imagination’ are being lobbed about with regard to his crappy obsession with CGI and I keep going ‘Are you kidding me?’

Other than the aforementioned three his films are so unforgivably bad it is embarrassing. Never did understand why the likes of Vikram and Rajini waste so much time on this dude and his threadbare scripts (if they can be called that). As for his heroines, they are so badly written, I wonder if he even knows what a real, live woman is like.

Surprised you considered Boys a hipper version of Thulluvadho Ilamai. The former was a disgrace whereas Selvaraghavan’s was a gutsy film that tackled taboo topics with surprising maturity for an amateur effort. Enna Saar?

2.0 looks stunningly bad and I am convinced it is going to be a disaster. Couldn’t held noticing that for all his confidence and brazen endorsement, Karan Johar confessed he hadn’t watched the damn film. Ye Gads!! Have mercy!

. 2.0 looks stunningly bad and I am convinced it is going to be a disaster. Couldn’t held noticing that for all his confidence and brazen endorsement, Karan Johar confessed he hadn’t watched the damn film. Ye Gads!! Have mercy!

Ayyooo, ROFL Anuja. I’m afraid i feel the same way. But for the sake of lyca who has sunk 400 or 500 or 600 crores, the figure keeps changing depending on who’s talking, I hope it’s wrong.

One more point I like to make about Shankar is that he got rid of the concept of a strong villain in a masala film. Except For raghuvaran in Mudhalvan . Gentleman has a token villain in Rajan p Dev. Arjuns main duel is with charanraj , who is good guy. There are no villains in Indian and Anniyan. In Enthiran, it’s Rajni itself who goes bad in the last half hour. In I , it’s a gallery of bad guys. . There never was a kamal- sathyaraj, kamal- Nasser , Rajni- raghuvaran kind of hero villain conflict in Shankar films.

“The former was a disgrace whereas Selvaraghavan’s was a gutsy film that tackled taboo topics with surprising maturity for an amateur effort”

I’m gonna posit the rather controversial hypothesis that Selva gets away with substantial amounts of crassness and crudity in his films because they are largely centered in a lower socio-economic strata of society. His heroes are world class douchebags, obnoxious louts about one leer and ass-grope away from being tagged as Serial Sex Offenders. But because of the milieu he sets it in, the fashionable thing is to call them “flawed”.

See, boys hiring a hooker and a boy asking a girl “Hey have you had your period?” are both crass acts, commodifying the female form as a mere object to expunge your lust. But both films (Boys and Pudhupettai) were true in their depiction of their teenage male characters in their respective settings.

Am just curious how one is vilified as crass and the other venerated as gutsy? No doubt Selva was going for a darker, more layered drama but Shanker’s agenda was different.

As any number of guys (if they’re honest) will tell you, teenage boys are a piping hot mess! We’re awkward with girls in public, objectify them in private, watch a shit ton of porn and indulge in such frenzied bouts of masturbation it’s a wonder we’re not all walking around with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

I just felt that Shanker captured that so well in an otherwise over-stuffed mass entertainer.

Thank goodness for Anuja’s comment. His “fun” films (yes, I quite enjoyed Mudhalvan) are IMO mostly just Sujata’s scripts that recieved decent enough treatment (and not to undermine ARR’s music, ofc), but that’s about it. His fascination with CGI has always yielded such dire results, I can’t recall a single “wow” moment in his films, although he’s trying all the time to – it’s just crass AF. And I’m not even delving into the shitty politics in his “social message” films.

Oh and BTW, re: TI vs Boys, with KayKay here wrt how Selva gets cut a lot of slack (although I quite enjoy his films, despite them being problematic). TI was crass and terrible, was hard to sit through, and although Boys sucked – it was much better, in many respects, than TI.

For an article titled “Every Shankar film , ranked” I’m puzzled as to why there is bashing of Shankar as a director going on in some comments.

If we take the spirit of the article as to mean
“1) Shankar as a director exists.
2) He has made these films.
3) And this is my opinion of how they rank compared to one another “

Then the discussion is best enhanced by sticking to those points rather than question fundamentally why at all does Shankar still exists as a director in the Tamil film industry.

See – the way I see it Shankar is probably one of the very few directors who abide by the first principle of a visual medium

“Show ; Don’t tell “

Take for example as a contrast the recent ARM directed atrocity of Sarkar where the entire first 30 minutes is just different people in the film telling us as to why the Vijay character is a corporate Monster and why they fear him. While they only thought fit to show him dancing in Las Vegas.

There are problems with the Show ; Don’t tell approach that if not done right it comes across as tacky/cliched/serendipitous etc but at least since his first film Shankar has stuck to the principle of showing, however crass they may seem today , and not just having expository segments. And by counting those small mercies(among a sea of poverty with regards to good directors in the 90s and early 2000s) I’m glad that he hasn’t lost that touch.

On the other hand his last outing “I” without Sujatha to rein him in was a disaster for me.

Let’s hope that the concept and the team behind 2.0 inspired in some way a return to form; though the trailers don’t give me much confidence.

Credit goes to Shankar for bringing in the SCOPE / SPECTACLE to kollywood. While Abavanan did it with Ooomai Vizhigal, Uzhavan magan, and Inaintha kaigal, Shankar made us feel the SCOPE all through the movie. Of course due credit to Abavanan and those film institute guys, they made us appreciate the cinematography, recollect the car headlights scene, and slow motion chase in Ooomai Vizhigal. That was called out in every review!!

I pick Mudhalvan, Enthiran, Boys, followed by Gentleman and Indian. Jeans and Kaadhalan were tiring to watch even though I loved the song sequences. Other movies were OK types.

Trivia: While I liked Indian, I found the story to be inspired from old Tamil movie Naam Pirantha Mann. Interestingly in that movie also Kamal, the son, gets killed by the father played by Sivaji. Similar story line. I found Indian better than Naam Pirantha Mann though.

I understand we are only rating his movies and not his directorial skills, but still I would like to put it out here. In all his movies, his women characters don’t have any agency. Don’t find him different from other tamil directors when it comes to how kollywood shows the women.

But then again, I love Shanker. With the same passion Tambi Dude probably hates Mani Ratnam.

I love that categorization of his oeuvre. Social Spectacle.

Given that one of the things that never ceases to amaze me on my trips to India is the co-existence of extreme opulence next to dire poverty, Shanker’s movies run this gamut effortlessly. His is the India of double shots at the Le Meridien bar and chomping on a freshly fried “Bajji” in a road side tea stall. He bridges slums and skyscrapers with a flair few other film-makers have. I think he’s still the most successful A,B & C center film-maker working today.

With that unabashed Fan Boy gush out of the way, can I be THAT commenter who needs to respond to a “Top 10” article with his own?

My Top Shanker Flicks (based on enjoyment factor and re-watches. In descending order)

Enthiran
What more can I say about this giddily enjoyable sci-fi spectacle? Flawed in a few aspects but at heart, the perfect Frankenstein fable. It boggles my imagination that people can wax lyrical about Rajini’s laughable 5 minute cameo as an “evil king” in Chandramukhi (replete with the Stupidest. Catch. Phrase. Ever) and ignore his baddie turn here. Nope not talking about Chitti post-interval, but Dr. Vaseegaran. He’s a dick to his creation (cementing the Victor Frankenstein parallel) and a jerk to his girlfriend. Arrogant and insecure. Cowardly and manipulative. Eat that, Vettaiyan Raja!And that climax? Aces!
Indian

How awesomely cool is it that a movie that calls itself Indian, not only has it’s vigilante hero be an ex-Freedom Fighter, but have him use an honest to goodness Indian martial arts to disarm his foes? Makes you wonder why more movies don’t utilize “Kalari” and “Marma” in their film instead of lifting moves wholesale off HK Kung Fu flicks. And here’s another terrific “negative” turn from a Major Star that’s not often talked about. Chandru is introduced as a Creature of the System, who buys sanitary napkins fro his boss’ wife in order to secure a promotion and turns a blind eye to faulty brake systems in exchange for a greased palm and the terrific script, to it’s credit, stays consistent to this character beat. No third act redemption arcs for Chandru. He remains unrepentant to the end. With fatal consequences.

Anniyan

The Shanker-Vikram combo gets very little love but their first collaboration is a doozy. Anchored by a terrific Vikram performance and a gorgeous Harris J score, Anniyan bucks the trend of most Mass Tamil movies which traditionally extol it’s Hero’s lack of letters (not to mention basic manners), his illiteracy proudly displayed as a badge of honor to boost his street cred and integrity. Refreshingly, Ambi is….SMART. Not just street smart but book smart. A capable enough lawyer, but his deadliest weapon is his encyclopedic knowledge of vedic lore, whose Old Testament style punishments is used to devastating effect by his savage alter ego Anniyan.
Ambi could have ended up as a Bargain Bin Nerd, but Vikram imbues him with a degree of whiny pedantry that makes him a fully realised character (his reaction to his marriage proposal being rejected is terrific. It’s not so much his dismay at being turned down, but that the reason given does not meet his exacting, quantifiable standards).
An exacting and bookish nerd, a Brahmin to boot, using esoteric knowledge to take out society’s trash? Could you make this movie today?

Mudhalvan

Pare Mudhalvan down to just the interview scene with Raghuvaran and Arjun’s 24 hour CM stint and you’d get the Best Shanker Short Movie of all time. After that pre-interval high there was only one direction the film could go. A weak climax and some embarrassing attempts to make the one-note Arjun emote thankfully doesn’t derail the entire second half.

Boys

Hormonal teenage boys who think about sex with girls, wank off to sex with girls and hire girls (or should I say ONE girl) for sex. And it caused a shit storm of furore.

Hypocrisy, Meet Myopia.

I

The second Shanker-Vikram combo is a come-down from Anniyan, with an uneven script and a cringe inducing treatment of a transsexual that had even a die hard fan like myself gnashing his teeth. But once again, Vikram grounds this lesser effort with a maelstrom of a performance, subjecting his body to Christian Bale levels of torment and transformation. And Shanker once again shows his is an India of layers and contrasts. His world of modeling runs the gamut of glitzy high end fashion shoots in China to the low end of hawking dodgy sex stimulants and dubious infomercials offering free gold bars for land purchase.
Most surreal moment: A fight scene featuring oiled musclemen in their briefs culminating in a synchronized Group Pectoral Flexing.

That sums up my fav Shanker movies.

Least fav Shankar movies: Sivaji and Jeans.

Splice the 1st half of Sivaji and the second half of Jeans and you’d get the Worst Shanker Movie ever made. Angavai/Sangavai, Stalkerish Family, a bizarre foray into skin whitening leading into an elaborate deception to convince an Idiot Twin that his brother’s fiance has a twin of her own. That’s at least 2 solid hours of Grade A Stupidity. But oh, THAT Radhika performance and THAT Rahman Score…..

Shanker movies I have only watched once and can’t quite remember: Gentleman and Kadhalan.

I think I liked Gentleman but am fairly sure I disliked Kadhalan. Never quite saw the appeal of Prabhu Deva. Still don’t. And the “virgin testing” scene ranks right up there in sheer awfulness. Not to mention a weird police torture scene. I may be remembering this wrong, but is this the one where the Butch Police Lady threatens to shove a rod up PD’ ass and puts ants in his pants?

Is this a Shanker Movie? Nanban

This perfect shot for shot copy is a bizarre choice for Shanker to say the least. Still, a non-obnoxious Vijay performance is a rare enough event and should be savored.

‘I’m gonna posit the rather controversial hypothesis that Selva gets away with substantial amounts of crassness and crudity in his films because they are largely centered in a lower socio-economic strata of society. His heroes are world class douchebags, obnoxious louts about one leer and ass-grope away from being tagged as Serial Sex Offenders.’

Agreed. But Kaykay, the thing with Selva is he doesn’t pretend these LOSERS are anything but world class douchebags. These are stories about the scumbags and bottom feeders who have no place in civilized society (and with good reason) and I love the searing honesty and rawness in Selva’s work (conspicuous by it’s absence in Shankar’s overblown, gassy films). It is the reason I am drawn to Eminem’s work as well though his misogyny and homophobia can leave you with a bad taste in the mouth.

Shankar on the other hand is merely every kind of superficial. And Boys was so empty of nuance not to mention even a modicum of merit. Hate that scene with Genelia and her friends who lead a dude on just so they can cop a free meal in MarryBrown (does Harini seem like the sort of person who would go to such lengths to scarf down a hot touch burger with sides of fried chicken, coleslaw and fries?) or her snooty, uppity mom wanting her daughter to marry her brother (ugh!). Even Vivek’s character has some stupid backstory about a stone cold beeyotch who broke his heart and married a rich dude which is why he decided that going forward he will pay for a woman’s affection. I also can’t believe that woke Sidharth played Munna who thinks streaking will win him the heart of the girl he loves.

Shankar’s characters have the mentality of folks who like to wear their lungis with their underwear showing and take a dump or scratch their hairy armpits in full view of unsuspecting passersby but for some strange reason they are togged out in outlandish designer gear. And we are supposed to buy into their ‘hipness’.
It is just this sort of regressive crap in Shankar’s films packaged in glitzy wrapping that gets on my nerves. Remember those girls with black face in Shivaji? I could go on, but these are my pet peeves which is why I respond so negatively to Shankar.

“As any number of guys (if they’re honest) will tell you, teenage boys are a piping hot mess! We’re awkward with girls in public, objectify them in private, watch a shit ton of porn and indulge in such frenzied bouts of masturbation it’s a wonder we’re not all walking around with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.”

And here I was thinking that this applies to most men across all ages and not just hormone – ridden teens. 😂🤣

The crux of Anniyan is dangerously similar to the Sidney Sheldon novel “Tell Me Your Dreams”.Which I thought Shankar rehashed with his favorite vigilantism.Also you could tell it was a hurriedly made movie,with many scenes ending abruptly with no proper segue between them..At that time I thought Shankar made this movie in desperation to make amends for “Boys” (which I thought was pretty good and would not have got the flak it got ,had been rated “A”) .

“Mate , while i am with you , re Carpal Tunnel Syndrome , Honestly, that movie made me feel like taking a shower after watching it.”

Original V, but why????I mean, I’m fine if you hated the movie per se, but if Tamil Film’s long and storied history of double entendres, lewd dances, crude behavior and it’s Stellar Track Record of objectifying women(when not subjecting them to outright verbal and physical abuse not to mention stalkerish behavior in the name of true love) doesn’t make you wanna take a shower, but a movie about teenage boys with a smattering of sexual humor does, then some level of calibration is in order. Or do you object to sex in movies in general?

Full disclosure: I could watch these movies only on Television. While I caught bits and pieces of most, the only two films I’ve seen completely are Mudhalvan and Indian.

The virginity test in Kadhalan, the undressed girl rescued by Chitti jumping in front of a moving bus, Shriya using a piece of her clothing to help Rajinikanth, the way Sukanya and her companions’ capture and assault is picturized in Indian, Manisha offering her ‘virtue’ to Arjun in Mudhalvan all leave a very bitter taste in my mouth.

I might seem to be reducing all of Shankar’s work to these scenes, but for me personally nothing beyond them matters, as I have already changed the channel. Except for the last two of course, which I still think are terrific films, which could have been better if only the female characters were treated better.

IMHO, Shankar’s films also have significant WTF quotients. Two striking examples are the Kannodu kanbadellam song/ending scene with a dinosaur( ‘motion capture’ is being dropped here in an attempt to sell this ridiculousness) in Jeans and Sadha’s mindblowing inability to recognize Ambi in Remo getup in Anniyan.

Having read the article back and forth, I can’t help but compare this with Balabhadhra Onandi’s “tribute” to the Pulikesi Maharaja!

The Shankar fan in me was about to defend the “virgin-test” scene in Kaathalan – my memory of the film is rather vague – on the lines that “it’s just the character”. But after re-watching the scene, I can only say that Shankar really needs a BR to defend his writing. 🙂 Gandhi Krishna, Shankar’s assistant, made a children’s film called Nilakalam. The film has a similar scene – the Roja character conducts the test on her preteen daughter who comes back home. The film won a National award.

I’m hoping that somebody would come up with a Reader’s Write In on “Top-10 cringeworthy moments in Shankar films”. A couple of scenes from Gentleman would feature in my list!

I have enjoyed Shankar’s earlier movies like Mudhalvan, Gentleman and Indian better. Endhiran, I have seen it only once and I didn’t like it mostly. I enjoyed Rajini’s villathanam. And the most mass scene for me in that movie was when Chitti, right in front of a temple, does a Viswaroopam with multiple hands and weapons.

Anniyan, like Vasanth pointed out earlier, reminded me too much of ‘Tell Me your Dreams’ especially the climax. And the killings by Anniyan, I felt was a lift from the movie ‘Seven’. I thought the movie would have had a nicer twist if the split personalities were played by different people like in Fight Club.

On that note, a couple of questions to you if you don’t mind.

Did you see the references to ‘Tell Me your dreams’ or Seven in Anniyan?

If noticed, is there an etiquette for Professional Reviewers to not call out on sources that the director himself does not acknowledge?

Or you don’t mention about them because it does not affect the review in any way? I suppose for reviewers what matters most is the execution of the content rather than how original the content itself. No ?

Well, Anniyan is a copy of Vidatha Karuppu tv serial diected by Naga. Right after Anniyan, Shankar produced Naga’s Anthapurathu Veedu. That cannot be a coincidence. God knows rest of his movies are copied from which Thailand tv series

I am surprised with Indian at 4. It should have been
1. Indian
2. Mudhalvan
3. Gentleman
4. Boys ( Most realistic film in his career.)
5. Jeans
6. Enthiran
7. Kadhalan
8. Anniyan ( Post Boys he got scared and started to make messy playing to audience films)
9. Sivaji
10. Nanban ( disapointed with this scene by scene remake)
11. Ai

Eswar: No, I didn’t know about the Sheldon connect — all the Sheldons I’ve read were way back in school, so it was just the early ones (till ‘If Tomorrow Comes’, I think, which influenced ‘Ek Hasina Thi’).

About reviewing: No, it doesn’t really bother me. Of course it’s an ethical issue (and I will mention it if I know about the source). But as long as the film has been made with skill and does what it sets out to do, that’s all I care about in the review itself.

Ganesh Iyer: Are you “surprised” at the list itself or at the fact that other people have different tastes? 🙂

Anuja, you’ve touched upon one of the key points I was making: You put up with Selva’s crass losers because you EXPECT it.

But people expecting to tune in to one of Shanker’s glossy Vigilante Flicks were, firstly, taken aback with this (melo)drama about a quintet of boys, and then secondly, shocked at the level of sexual humor in it.

I’m certainly not defending Boys as a deathless work of art, just going to bat for what I perceive to be an almost comical level of shade being thrown at it.

And people who wear designer wear and frequent hip cafes can still talk trash and indulge in crudities, you know?

Just that the expectation seems to be that if you are going to be a potty mouth, wear an ACTUAL lungi folded up to reveal your striped boxers, while sipping chai at your favourite roadside tea stall next to that garbage strewn alleyway, not wearing torn designer jeans and munching on a burger in an air conditioned fast food joint.

” And Boys was so empty of nuance not to mention even a modicum of merit.”

It’s tonally all over the place but I wouldn’t say it’s empty of nuance. That scene where all parents converge and dump on their kids is a stark reminder, that as extolled as they are in pretty much all Indian movies, Indian parents can be world class dickheads at times, their own failed ambitions and compromises bleeding into their children’s lives.

“Hate that scene with Genelia and her friends who lead a dude on just so they can cop a free meal in MarryBrown”

Anuja, I’m surprised you’re not seeing what happened here! It’s not that the affluent Harini needed a free meal, but that this was her way of teaching the annoying dude a lesson. She had NO interest in him, but he was creepily persistent, so she takes him to a fast food joint, calls her friends, orders everything off the menu and empties his wallet. A tad cruel I know, but hey, hot girls can be cruel.

“Even Vivek’s character has some stupid backstory about a stone cold beeyotch who broke his heart and married a rich dude which is why he decided that going forward he will pay for a woman’s affection”

Well, it’s a smidgen of information to flesh out a supporting character, nothing more. And men who nurse a broken heart by indulging in commitment free and commercial sex isn’t unheard of.

“I also can’t believe that woke Sidharth played Munna who thinks streaking will win him the heart of the girl he loves”

I admit, this scene would have worked better had it been played entirely for laughs. It’s one of my problem with Boys it should have been an out and out comedy, instead of having a melodramatic moment lurking around every corner.

As an example, see this self-contained comedic gem nestled right in the middle of the movie.

The movie could have used more scenes like this.

” I love the searing honesty and rawness in Selva’s work”

Actually, so do I, in his better ones like Pudhupettai. But can Shanker, operating at an exponentially larger budget and an admittedly different target audience, afford to be that raw?

“Remember those girls with black face in Shivaji?”

Angavai/Sangavai is absolutely indefensible,and I mentioned as much in my follow up comment. Along with the treatment of the Transsexual character in I and naked girl throwing herself in front of a bus in the otherwise delightful Enthiran.

“And here I was thinking that this applies to most men across all ages and not just hormone – ridden teens.”

You’re not too far off the mark there! It’s just a difference in frequency. You now take the whole night to do something you spent the whole night doing. I am of course talking about drinking…

KayKay: To take your point further, Boys is revolutionary because the movies have conditioned us to think that the “youth having sex on the mind” scenario is possible if (1) the youth are the kind Selva depicts (i.e. from lower classes), or (2) a “villainous youth” with a minor chain from the upper classes (one who has evil designs on the heroine).

To show hormonal boys from across a range of classes (and “nice” boys at that, the non-villainous kind) was absolutely revolutionary. This is what caused so much disgust about the film, IMO — that it did not “other” these sexual beings. They were one of us (whichever class we are from).

I agree, this point alone cannot “make” a movie, which has to work at other levels too. But it has to be acknowledged.

Man, some people here are too harsh on “Jeans”! It is a no-brainer – fully acepted. But it was real fun. The kind of stuff you sit and enjoy with your family. No vulgarity or obscenity. A conniving lady doing all it takes to get her grand-daughter married! I really don’t see why it should annoy you. BR, you don’t even offer reasons for why it irks you so much?? One of my most favorite ever Shankar movies, made all the more special with ARR’s music.

The S.Ve Sekar track in Jeans is a riot. Jeans is definitely a parts-greater-than-whole film. I actually think Jeans was not a bad nomination for the oscars, not that it had even a remote chance of getting the final nomination, but it is a good representative of a certain kind of commercial cinema only made in India. I hope the Indian jury who nominated it meant it as a joke.

jaga_jaga: For me, the whole conceit that because there are two Nassers, the Prashant twins should also marry only identical twins just didn’t work at all. At the height of judwa nonsense in Hindi films, this still felt too far fetched even back then. It was also disappointing to learn India’s then most expensive film had simply expended a lot of money in shooting songs in exotic locations.

therag – exactly what I say! Jeans is an out-and-out corny movie. The likes of which one can watch umpteen times without thinking! The movie is even today keenly watched when it is showed on TV. A lot of “average” Tamil families love this movie. And the ensemble was perfect for this movie – be it the cranky brother of Aiswarya Rai or the unsuspecting wives of S ve Sekar and the elder Naasser, respectively. People only talk about Radhika. But the supporting cast did a brilliant job there. And Shankar did the best possible job of making use of every penny Vijay Amritraj offerred! Be it with respect to visual appeal, screenplay or slapdash comedy. When so much is on offer, that the plot is just an afterthought didn’t even matter to most people. No wonder people liked/like this one – especially women and children, and of course a lot of men too….

@Madan – who asked you to think so much about the plot?? No two opinions that the idea was definitely corny. But it was really enjoyable. Jeans is definitely not a movie I’ll analyze like say a Vada Chennai.

Some movies pander to your intellect, some others to the intrinsic clown in you. This one had an enormous appeal to the clown in me!!

I think this list is fairly reflective of how I would rate Shankar’s films. I was not that impressed with Jeans or Indian. But Indian was definitely watchable thanka to Kamal’s weird old man get up and of course ARR. I found the interactions between Manisha and Urmila pretty juvenile. But Kamal always like his heroines to fight and quarrel for his affection. He does it even today in Viswaroopam.

Mudhalvan was his best but I will say Endhiran comes a very close second. It may have been the best if Shankar had opted for another heroine instead of Aishwarya and better comediens. Santhanam was horrible.

Even if he had wanted only Aishwarya, he could have made her a doctor instead of a medical college student. She was too old to fit into that role. A practicing doctor being a fiancee to a middle aged scientist – that would have been so apt, no?

And Boys was actually good – at times a bit of too much drama. But his movies are always OTT so cannot expect it to be better.

On the crassness, that is in fact the storyline. The kids are not interested in academics. They are forced to go to college. So they waste their time doing such things. Maybe the message could have been a lot subtler but it definitely showcased how kids when forced into academics end up boozing, going after girls and at times even attempt something as crazy as going to a prostitute. The intent here is how kids can get drawn into such things due to the company they keep

Mudhalvan is not just the best political fairly tale in tamil cinema but in all of India and quite possibly the world( i dont think I have seen political fairy tales exist elsewhere). Just the sheer idea of the 1 day CM which many of us think about and so many great set-pieces like the interview scene you mentioned. A masala film with such a clever non-action climax? Woah!

For me, no other Shankar movie carried the emotional heft of Muthalvan. It shows the ordinary man becoming a hero and paying the price for it. The relationship between the hero and his parents is established well enough to carry a sense of loss when they are gone. I guess it also helps that it’s different from his usual vigilante stuff.

Enthiran would have worked better if all the nonsensical scenes around Aishwarya Rai are done away with, esp. the one with kalabhavan Mani. It needed to be half an hour shorter.

My major problem with Boys was the casting. None of them looked convincing plus the plot itself was hanging midway between a wannabe American Pie and a melodramatic coming of age story.

Yes, the female characters in some of his movies are very badly written, but I guess that’s the norm in Tamil Cinema.

Hi BR! Long time lurker (since Maryan: Sea Programming days) and first time commenter. You and the AsthAna commenters here have almost become my spirit-buddies by now.

(Cue: Kuruvamma kaviyam in Jigarthanda).

Happy to upgrade my status now.

When it comes to world building, Shankar is still the best in business. And IMO, a big part of that is handled by the dialogs in his films even if he is a show-and-not-talk director.

His collaboration with Sujatha as the dialog writer imbues authenticity to the world he presents in his movies. Sujatha’s forte with brevity amplifies the gripping sequences and positively distracts us during the lousy parts.

Moreover, it is impactful in fleshing out the supporting characters in legendary ways. Senthil in Boys(philosophy as “Inbaramason”), Manivannan in Mudhalvan (honesty buried under years sycophancy) and even contractor Chokkalingam in Anniyan who tries to be in the good books of railway minister by serving roasted cashews as a part of the menu!

It’s impossible to know who takes the credit for these but these little touches used to appeal to me a lot in Shankar’s films.

I believe the secret sauce lies somewhere in doling out right doses of information with balance. As pointed out earlier, Chandru from Indian even metaphorizes in character (something on the lines of “Heavy duty mudinjidhu..ippo light vehicle”.) These things don’t seem force fitted and trivia-heavy because of this balance.

With so many dialogs in movies today screaming “I did my research and I wanna show it!” and end up looking jutted, Shankar-Sujatha duo was deft in packaging them in innocuous but effective ways.

After Sujatha’s demise, this aspect looks glaring as the dialogs aren’t bolstering the “world” with balance. It tilts towards the trivia side or simply falls flat. Ai was a glorious exhibition of this imbalance.

On a completely unrelated note- Does anyone feel that the hilarious train journey sequence is a creator’s nod to a similar one in ‘Thillana Mohaanambaal’ ?

@jaga_jaga: Has nothing to do with thinking about the plot. This was just something I could not suspend my disbelief over. And a lot of people agree with me on this so I am not alone. Everyone has different ideas of entertainment. Housefull franchise is immensely successful. Doesn’t mean I can stand it for more than a couple of minutes if that.

@Madan – Fair enough! Here, many people have seconded your opinion. I just brought about the idea that, there is after all a valid reason why Jeans is a popular and well-liked movie. Detractors always do exist for anything!

Jaga_jaga: Barring “I”, I had watched the other Shankar movies within a day or two of their release on the big screen, before reviews were out & spoilers revealed. So the movies were a specatacle in the real sense where you were bowled over by what you saw even if later your brain got around to realize the flaws.

With Jeans, that did not happen. It unfurled more like a Visu padam with Visuals – think Manal Kayiru, Samsaram adhu minsaram, Vedikkai en vadikkai plots & you would get the connection. The first few minutes were awesome with the very inventive Columbus Columbus picturization. But enter Lakshmi, Madhesh & Madhu it became a dialog drama (Balakumaran as a
fiction writer I adore, but his collaborations with Shankar in the Dialog dept were torturous to me – Kadhalan, Jeans & even Gentleman’s philosophical dialogues by Nambiar/Saranraj’s dad). This ennappaaa, paaatiii by Madhu, the true- blue tamizhans in Visu-Ramu, Karisma Nichani instead of Krishnaveni, “ladies probbblem” & its home remedy given by a US Medico – all these & many more appeared forced.

As the songs & their picturization, the flashback and the humour (SV Sekar) were good, it wasnt a total write-off. But surprisingly on subsequent viewings on TV, the movie worked very well for me. Same with Minsara Kanavu – I liked it more when I watched it on TV. Jeans minus the songs was right for the telly. Whereas even with Kadhalan, the outrageous story was supplemented by fun OTT sequences – like the Chidambaram Natyanjali bomb sequence, Governor as the villain wink-wink (that was the time TN Governor had locked horns with the CM), Raghuvaran’s Malli etc. that made it worthwhile to watch in theaters.

I would still watch Jeans if it came on TV, but I remember how I wasnt all that thrilled after catching it on silver-screen. The Director’s USP of grandeur was lost in this family drama is what I felt then & even now.

@V – You’ve just enumerated all the reasons why people who like Jeans, like them! You nailed it when you said it is a sophisticated Visu Padam. Visu Padams themselves are huge hits even now when they are shown on TV! Tamizh audience (a lot of them) significantly love such dialogue heavy movies. Add cool visuals on top, and it became a highly enjoyable spectacle.

@Madan – Movies like Jeans are proof enough that a concept need not always be high brow for us to enjoy. I have seen 6 or 7 year old kids go crazy when this Maadesh guy goes “Kumbabhisheka, Aaraadhanaa”, or a 70 year old go into a frenzy filled chuckle, when S ve shekar goes “modalla porandaa modal ponnu, rendaavdaa porandaa rendaavdu ponnu”, houswives shed tonnes of tears when Radhika goes “vaayum vayirumaa irukkaa nu soda vaanga poneengala, illa mookkum mozhiyumaa irukkaa naa”.

Actually one more point – I find it ironic that people can believe in the “one day chief ministership” thingy, and even found it enjoyable, but for some reason don’t believe the bothched-up brain surgery or the twins-marrying-twins conceit. The tropes are both equally incredulous for me. Why put one on a pedestal and bury another??

Given the bigger picture plotlines in both Mudalvan and Jeans, the details were worked out immaculately. It is just that some people go gaga over the bigger picture in Mudalvan as they brush aside it in Jeans!

” Movies like Jeans are proof enough that a concept need not always be high brow for us to enjoy. ” – Again, that is a reductive argument. Said nothing about high brow or low brow. I like plenty of low brow films. There are also high brow films where the conceit has not worked for me (Inception for example). The conceit that a man would hold up the marriage of his identical twins until he finds identical twins for brides just because of what happened to his brother just did not work for me. Simple as that. It is my choice and I don’t go along with the argument that I am supposed to keep that aside for ‘entertainment’. When I find the conceit irritating, I am not entertained.

” I find it ironic that people can believe in the “one day chief ministership” thingy, and even found it enjoyable” – Nobody believes it but the fantasy that an ordinary man of integrity could fix things if given the power that politicians wield and abuse is something people can relate to. The entire conceit of identical twins in Jeans exists only to have an overload of double action – double action Nassar, double action Prashant and even a virtual double for Aishwarya. I am willing to bet Shankar mounted the whole edifice only to have that virtual alter ego for Aishwarya. This is one instance where his desire for visual experimentation crossed well over into self indulgence. I could have borne double Nassars but one Ash/one Prashant was already a mouthful and doubles for both was just too much to put up with. And all as I said for a very artificial construct that achieved nothing, struck no chord and was just a visual gimmick.

Adding to that, by Tamil commercial filmmaker standards, I have always felt Shankar is a little weak in comedy. And he also tends to take the central premise of his films very seriously. This works fine in issue based films like Mudhalvan or Gentleman, even Anniyan to an extent. But Jeans suffers from not being able to laugh at itself, the only thing that could have saved this film, and a super bloated script that just goes on and on and on. He tends to take a convoluted approach and this is tolerable when the cause is something worth tying up in knots. With Jeans, it becomes like pulling teeth.

I found the concept of Mudalvan to be so absurd that I could never connect with the “what an ordinary man with integrity could do…” idea. The twins marrying twins trope in contrast resonated really well with me. After all, Nasser lost his wife only because there wasn’t any understanding between his wife and his twin brother’s wife. So, given this, and the fact the Nasser sees his twins bonding really well and he bonding very well with his own twin brother, he expected the same thing from twin sisters – a much more palatable idea than this one day CM thing, which made me go “what the hell”!

About Shankar’s comedy – Someone earlier nailed it. His collaboration with Sujata really worked in this context. The comedy in Jeans is something, I, and a whole of others I know really enjoyed. The absurdity of the situation and the silliness of the whole thing was just fantastic for a lot of us! Dialogues from the movie are evergreen, and is part of the lingo at many Tamil homes today!

Overall, it was just such a good experience, watching this movie, for me – every single time I watch it!

Don’t hate on Jeans guys!! It is the only Shankar film I’ve watched more than once (ok maybe Indian as well). It has immense rewatch value and is the only Shankar film that women can watch without worrying, cringing and feeling outright pukey. It is my fave “so bad it’s good” Tamil film. Everything is outright over the top – Prashanth is ridiculous as fuck (especially his dialogues), Senthil is a USA-vaasi and Ash looks ethereal, overly made up and utterly unconvincing as a Chennai girl – I love all of it!! The weird brother is great, Lakshmi is awesome, SV Sekar and the mom are stupid and funny, Radhika is fantastic – what’s not to like??? The only person I didn’t enjoy from the cast was Nasser – he was annoying and one note. For me, Jeans would be number 2 on list, after Indian. Jeans Foreva!!!!! (still laughing at an ABCD guy saying he has “thikkumukkaadified” in happiness – so many ridic scenes in that film ahahahaha – gotta go watch again)

Shankar wastes a lot of money for the songs, in which he often uses special effects just for their own sake. All that time and money spent whitening Rajini in “Style,” pointless bullet-time effects in “Ale Ale,” dancing CGI rubbish creatures in “Boom Boom,” etc. They’re crass CGI demo reels that don’t contribute to the story or to world-building. Same with traveling to foreign locations for no reason. Why waste time and money traveling to South America to film songs for “Enthiran” when the story at-hand is way more engaging than a foreign location could ever be?

With regards to comedy in Shankar’s films, I thought the Goundamani-Senthil officer-broker track in Indian to be a riot. I watched the movie a couple of times just for that bit. Of course lived the movie too but the comedy track was something else. Jeans was enjoyable when I saw it but later on when I sat back and gathered my thoughts, realised that it was quite absurd.

“what someone likes is always a personal choice”.” – Sure. And when you start wondering why people don’t like Jeans and why they tolerate one conceit and not the other, they are going to give reasons you don’t like either. That’s how it works.

While watching “Ralph breaks the Internet” last weekend, I noticed the similarities between a scene where millions of Ralphs form a Mega Ralph that torments the internet universe with Enthiran’s climax scenes.

Thinking about it now, Shankar does have an artistic sensibility that can be match for animation movies. Shankar always dabbled with animation in his earlier movies as pointed out by BR in his post.

Make no mistake, he is no John Lasseter or Walt Disney or any of the other Pixar geniuses, but with some good writing and education from the west,he could have been a great animation director had there been an appetite/market for animation in India.

@shaviswa – what is pathetic about dikkilona, jalabula jungs or couplings, or spoonlings??

Not the most family friendly, granted! But the cheesy teen in me, incredibly loves them! “Dikkilona”, man! What a creative name, and an equally creative game. Shankar is so good that, he could package 50 shades of grey two decades before it hit the screen, for an Indian audience! These games, and jokes are part of folklore.

I am not even getting into how good/bad Shankar is w.r.t comedy. But the Gentleman, Dikkilona (I love saying it as much as I can, dikkilona, dikkilona….so much fun in saying it) and associated games/jokes are fantabulous.

Jaga_jaga: Goundamani and Senthil were howlarious in Gentleman and Indian, though quite a few (not me) found the dikkilonas and ethana aththa ponnunga jokes to be risque.

Trivia: Apparently Goundamani was signed up to play Nasser’s role in Jeans, but post Ullathai Allitha’s super successful run, Gounder hiked his remuneration to 1C & even mega-budget Shankar couldn’t afford him. Imagine Gounder vs SV Sekar together – both of them good at counters.

Probability of a twin birth is somewhere around 1/300 to 1/500 according to most medical publications. I am going to guess that probability of being a doctor is significantly lower. Yet we don’t find it ridiculous if some parent enforces the condition that their son or daughter should marry a doctor!

Jeans is not one of my fav movies. But I didn’t find the concept very odd at all. Even in 21st century, in arranged marriages, parents enforce ridiculous conditions and with Nasser’s flashback, his reasoning seemed quite logical 🙂

@Balu – great point! That expectation is much more logical than “one day chief minister”. Probability of that happening is close to 0! Anyways, no one watches Shankar movies to get a dose of reality, I guess. So, it doesn’t matter.

I find “so bad it is good” to be so overused. Jeans may be over the top but it is NOT “so bad it is good”, it is GOOD(or bad). “So bad it is good” IMHO is a category reserved for films made very sloppily, with absolutely no effort and piss-poor production values. Usually all you get is a pile of garbage that cannot be watched even by the guy who made it, but due to the laws of probability, every once in a while you get a disaster that is so horrifying that you cannot avert your eyes. Like Narasimha. None of Shankar’s films are in the “so bad it is good” category.

I’m having a hard time believing that Nassar would be a second choice to Goundamani, or that a character eventually played by Nassar was written for Goundamani. Nassar is in an entirely different class of actors. Wiki says that Shankar changed the script from comedy to romance since he couldn’t get Gounder. So maybe Shankar did want a light-hearted self-aware film around the twins conceit but had to settle for a romance instead.

So apparently Jeans deserved a SundarC/Goundamani/Sirpi Combo not the Shankar/Nasser/ARR combo. It did not need foreign locals. Village belle coming to Big Bad Chennai would do. Goundamani as Udupi hotel Mudhalali with twin sons.

S.Ve.Shekar would be the docile village dad forced to pretend to be a ruffian. Wife ditto.
Throw in a devoted domestic help pretending to be a Astrologer (Vadivel) because he is indebted to Lakshmi. He is the one who supposedly misread the stars and forced the female “twins” to be separated at birth. He can’t do Astrology Jargon and this adds to the humour.

Simran would have loved the double role opportunity. Or Ramba. Or Devayani. She is introduced as village belle and is given a temporary urban Malayali avatar.

The movie would have brought back Goundamani’s salary in no time. Not all stories are improved with a huger budget. Jeans is a good slapstick comedy story.

The wonderful soundtrack and Aishwarya Rai and Foreign locals could have done with a more earnest love story.

IMO

And yes Jeans is not terrible enough to qualify for the “so bad it’s good” tag.

I grew up as a fan of “Top Star” Prashanth. The late 90s was a bad phase for him and Jeans kinda marked a resurgence of form for him. I still remember watching the thiraivimarsanam of the film – coming home back from school and having a “Wow, is he Prashanth?” moment!

Jaga_Jaga: The kind of stuff you sit and enjoy with your family. No vulgarity or obscenity.

Couldn’t agree more. Sometime back, my father told me that it’s been a long time since we saw a film together in a theater. By then, I got reminded of Jeans. 🙂

Admittedly, Jeans has not aged well but we are not talking about Jeans being that kind of a movie, are we? I was 20 when Jeans was released and remember watching it in the theatre. I remember being thrilled out of my senses with the CGI, locations, and sheer audaciousness of the “plot”. And that is what Shankar was until Jeans – audacious!

He had the gall to convince a producer that he would make the audience sit through not 1 but 2 Prashants and traverse 7 global locations for a single song, in what is essentially a soap-opera plot! Shankar’s strength lies in visualizing threadbare story lines much like Michael Bay (and while Bay is allowed to remain completely unapologetic, our society does not afford Shankar the same luxury). This is not to defend Bay or what he presents, but just the fact that he is able to do it.

You could still watch Jeans without being bored, but I think these days, with the deluge of “deeper” content everywhere, our bias unconsciously come to the fore. Could Jeans be successful if made today? I wouldn’t totally rule it out.

@Rahini, what you described is not a Shankar film but a Pagal kaatchi KTV time-pass film. If we take that plot and execute it the way you described, the film would have been utterly unmemorable. Jeans is what it is because it is a ludicrous soap opera shot with a tent-pole budget.

Jeans would probably not be successful today because it was a specimen of its time. Family entertainer soap operas with Maamiyar politics and Thaali sentiment were a dime a dozen those days. Jeans is basically the same, albeit an outlier because of Shankar’s excess.

To me, Jeans is def a so bad its good film. Most of Shankar’s watchable films fall in that category to me. His later movies have atrocious acting, editing, make zero sense – the only movie where I felt something for the characters was Indian, in large part due to Kamal. I don’t even know how he’s a considered a serious film maker. Beggars really cannot be choosers, I guess. I tried watching mudhalvan once (number 1 in this list) and found it unwatchable – acting all around was just terrible. I just couldn’t take it seriously and I gave up.

@jaga_jaga – Exactly ! Being a 90’s kid, Jeans is one of the very few films that I can still watch without having to worry about the ‘About to ruin childhood in 3..2…1″ counter. I have not been able to enjoy almost all of my childhood favorite films because of the blatant misogyny and male-entitlement oozing through them but Jeans is surprisingly one “clean” film from a director who makes tone-deaf and insensitive jokes around homosexuals and dark skinned people to this day. Maybe it was not a great movie to be sent in as our Oscar representation but it definitely isn’t one which you can slot into the “so bad its good” category. I mean have people even been near sniffing distance of the likes of Gajendra, Sura and Yaaruku Yaaro Stepney types ?

” I don’t even know how he’s a considered a serious film maker.” – But is he? Maybe he is. I don’t read Tamil writing about Tamil cinema. Maybe they do hold him in high regard. I have just never come across people who rate him that highly, you know alongside Mani/KB/Bharathiraja etc. Is he a significant filmmaker in pop culture terms? I would say yes. He did define the flavour of 90s Tamil cinema to a large extent, especially with Gentleman and Kadhalan. Had a DCH like effect in terms of introducing a softer, more urban and more Tanglish (?) flavour in the movies which wasn’t there before.

” but it definitely isn’t one which you can slot into the “so bad its good” category” – For that it would have to be unintentionally hilarious. Which it isn’t. It’s not THAT badly made. But nor is it very interesting (for me). Could be said about a lot of Tamil films of the time, yes.

@rsylviana, @Honest Raj – Very true that! I am such a fan of the movie that even the Dosai (and likely the Idli which steams from an archaic Idly cooker) which Naser makes in his Karaikudi hotel is fresh in my memory! The movie reminds me of bonding, what it means to enjoy with my family. My mom feeding me, as we all sit together and watch “K TV in non-stop kondaattam, tododotottain!” Man, those days!

Having said it, the Gentleman type of comedy is something I enjoy with my pals (females and males) around whom I don’t carry the burden to be right. Can be politically, racially, sexuality-wise, gender-wise, and in any imaginably innocuous way, incorrect!

@Honest Raj, and @sravishankar – Absolutely! “Jala Bula Jungs” is yet another original monster! It is a phonetic beauty – between Jala and Bula, there is consistant end syllables rhyming, and between Jala and Jungs, we have the first syllable rhyming. And the whole thing reeks naughty!

I’ll suggest something, if there are couples out there, who want more intimacy, please go watch Gentleman, and try out all those games there. I mean, one partner can be Jala, another Bula, and they can do Jungs together. Someone can get someone else’s Dikki on a loan. Cups and spoons can link – man Gentleman, has therapeutic value, you see!

Tambi Dude : What you find unwatchable or not doesn’t decide who is or isn’t regarded as a great filmmaker. I found Space Odyssey unwatchable, doesn’t make Kubrick not a great filmmaker. Rightly or wrongly, KB’s name is often mentioned among the great filmmakers of TN. I have never seen Shankar included in that bracket, is my point.

Shankar and ARM are from SA Chandrasekar school of film making – social change ideas with crude ideas, as in raw, half baked ideas packaged with big stars and action plus a very crude depiction of women. Shankar brings a touch of richness and at least earlier his animation ideas were fun. ARM is the preachiest of the lot. SAC was the crudest of the lot. Some of that crudeness w.r.t depiction of women has seeped into Shankar as well, as evidenced by handling of Manisha’s character in Muthalvan and Aishwarya’s character in Enthiran.

Unfortunately, rest of Tamil Cinema isn’t teeming with genius directors, so their movies are good enough to be top of the tree in Tamil commercial Cinema.

I really like Karthik Subburaj, Vetrimaran and Manikandan of the current directors.

Maybe Amritraj as producer drew a line wrt mmisogyny in Jeans – clearly that is the exception amongst Shankar’s other films and depiction of women (as objects that are likely to get raped if left alone)

My current favourite is Mysskin. To be fair, I am way behind on Karthik Subbaraj and Vetrimaaran’s work so this could change. But I have loved all three Mysskin films that I have seen – Anjathey, OAK and Pisaasu. I do like him more than the old greats viz MR, Balu, KB, Bharathiraja etc.

Shankar’s films are full of misogyny, narrow minded views on sexuality/virginity…his love/romantic scenes are cringeworthy and humor just plain crude..whether its angavai/sangavai or one with transgender in I, or Indian/Gentleman comedy.

Especially the Gentleman scenes with Subashri where Gounder ogles at her while she is making those appalams was most cringe-worthy. Gounder and Senthil do all sorts of things at the appalam making unit and they are not even admonished (Subashri gets slapped by Madhubala of course). And later when a bunch of boys misbehave with Subashri, Arjun saves her and then gives that dose of advice. He says no one will pull Madhubala’s hands as she is decently dressed in a saree…… biggest eye roll moment ever IMO 😀

Regarding Shankar, its always some utterly stupid idea that drives his films , except for perhaps Endhiran and Indian. One day chief minister, twins marrying twins,multiple personality disorder that makes hair grow, whatever,i do believe that a lot of this stupidity is unintentional as opposed to someone like Manmohan desai who is fully aware of the ridiculousness of the stuff he is putting out. Shankar reveres his stupid concepts. Naayak the hindi remake of mudhalvan was a complete disaster as they never bought the basic point of the film. Shankar’s first choice for the film was Aamir Khan, Aamir rejected the film at the first hearing itself, then SRK rejected it, finally he had to settle for Anil Kapoor. His films have never worked in mumbai and beyond. 2.0 will most probably fix the issue once and for all about his standing as a director .

what ultimately saves his films is this Disney Land style theme park quality of his movies, each viewer can pick and choose which ride they want, for crude people there is crude scenes and comedy, for sophisticated people there is some hot social issue thrown in, there are the richly picturised songs , then there is OTT fun action sequences, there are WTF scenes like Robot Rajni trying to catch the mosquito that bit Aishwarya or a shaolin temple smack in the middle of TN where vikram indulges in matrix style stunts .each part is perfectly compartmentalised for each class of viewers. he doesnt even care to bring these elements together into a cohesive organic whole. He lets them all hang out. The question is never why those China portions in Ai or why those 7 wonders in Jeans? . those are the parts that make a Shankar film a shankar film. Its about the gloss, the grandeur and the items Nobody leaves his films disappointed. everyone has something to pick from the buffet table laid out.

On the contrary, he made the careers of both Kamal and Rajni. He stopped using them when they became popular superstars. with Rajni, he gave up much earlier post thillu mullu. with Kamal he persisted upto UMT, but even by Punnagai mannan , it was evident that Kamal had become too big for KB’s films

That snippet about Goundermani makes me go back to the feeling i always have when watching this movie.. That this was best done treated as a farce, like those countless David Dhawan movies or the tiresome Telugu masala movies of late. But does Shankar really have the comic chops to do that? Except for Gentleman and Indian to an extent, I don’t remember a good comedy track (as they usually were) from Shankar’s films. The less we talk about his recent releases, the better.

Also, does any one realize that the only good comedy bits in his films involve Gounder and/or Senthil (including Boyz)

Offtopic: Any reason why CV Sridhar isnt included in the hall of fame for Directors? I remember my grandma, parents, aunts – all 1930/40/50s kids remember his movies with fondness. Especially Kalyana Parisu, Then Nilavu, Kadhalikka Neramillai and Nenjil or alayam were path breaking for their times.

“Rightly or wrongly, KB’s name is often mentioned among the great filmmakers of TN. I have never seen Shankar included in that bracket, is my point.”

You are right, but to me it tells a lot about the quality of tamil movies if KB and BR are included among the best. No wonder the best of tamil movies are not a match to Bengali/Malayalam or art movies of Hindi were.

Try watching some of the Gulzar movies of 70s and 80s. Still watchable. I actually liked Aandhi and Izzajat even more in the last 10 yrs than when I saw it decades ago.

@shaviswa – About the Senthil, and K.Mani ogling in the appalam factory and getting away with it:

It is very clearly shown in the movie that, the womenfolk don’t even realized that someone is leering. Even Madhubala doesn’t feel it. None of the Maamis do. That Delhi girl doesn’t realize too. Madhubala asks the Delhi girl to cover up because she does not want to lose her man – not because someone is ogling at her.

This type of ogling is entirely natural and is the birthright of every citizen in this world. I can think as dirty as I want, I can convey it to those who I trust. No problem at all there, so long as I don’t mentally or physically harass any one. Note, I made it very clear, not just physically, but also mentally. But that doesn’t take away my right to think lewd, and speak lewd within my trusted circle.

So, Arjun has nothing against K. Mani or Senthil.

But those boys who molest that Delhi girl – of course, they deserve a thorough smashing, because they have mentally and physically abused someone. That is absolutely wrong.

“You are right, but to me it tells a lot about the quality of tamil movies if KB and BR are included among the best.” – No disagreement there and indeed I like Gulzar movies better than anything by KB/BR. Even from days of Sigappu Rojakkal, there has always been ‘pandering’ in Tamil films. I don’t disparage them for that in THAT era. But it continues to this day and if anything is worse in today’s masala films. On the other hand, the smaller films of some directors like mentioned above have moved well beyond these directions.

Just realised, after reading that Rex theatre in Bangalore is closing down that I’ve watched all the Shankar movies there. Indian being the first and I being the last. Just to digress a bit, feeling nostalgic and sad that a theatre that’s been so much a part of my growing up is shutting down. It’s been a constant presence in my life since the early 90’s when I tagged along with my uncle, his friend and his nephew not so much as to watch the Charlie Chaplin movies which screened every nyte for a week, but to enjoy the softees just outside Rex and just for the thrill of watching a night show. Watching night shows wen not even into teens gave one Enuf bragging rights at school those days. Later during my graduation days, it became more or less a best friend and partner in crime with my college being a couple of hundred meters away. As quite a few josephites would vouch for, it was at the galaxy’sand Rex’s and brigade fuels and Pecos that quite a few boys became men. A big thank u to the theatre that hosted ma first date ( not sure, think anniyan, another Shankar movie) and quite a few b day bashes.

Madan: To some extent tam movies are constrained by commercial considerations. When the economics of a movie is determined by how it runs in one state, you have to go with safe bets in formula.

The most sophisticated movie ever made in tamil is Hey Ram and Kamal learned his lesson after the debacle. Notice that he never attempted any movie remotely close in sophistication.

Plus cinema in TN has been a popular vehicle to deliver social message right from the days of Parasakthi. As a result drama is encouraged. And so is the influence of plays in story telling in movies, not to mention acting. I find it very hard to believe that a non tamil will ever like the style of Sivaji Ganeshan.

shaviswa: The crudest of all has to be the introduction scene of the Madhubala character. The conversation between her and Arjun is full of double entendre. What bothers me even more is that the Goundamani character is more like a brother to Madhubala’s.

You bring back memories! Another Bangalorean here – that softee machine used to be outside Nilgiris! That used to be the only place you got softees in Bangalore when I was a kid.

I have haunted Rex while living in Bangalore; it was the source of many English movies. Sad to hear that it is closing. So did Opera House, I heard. Those theatres were part of my childhood.

Is Lakeview Milk Bar still around in MG Road? They were the first to introduce ‘sundaes’ to us plebians. My aspiration was to go there to eat the ‘Honeymoon Special’. Alas, I moved from Bangalore long before I got married.

With respect to misogyny in ‘Gentleman’, we need to understand that the movie was released in 1993, different times.

@MANK, Nayak may have been a disaster but the dubbed versions of Kaadhalan, Indian and of course Endhiran did decent business in the north. At least that is what I read. And the ideas that drive his films are outlandish, unbelievable yes, I wouldn’t call them stupid.

@ anu warrier. Can relate to it. Yes, Lake view stands in the same place, refurbished. Now a Chennaiaite, visited lake view couple of months back jus for their honeymoon special after decades. One just goes back to these old places like dewars, Windsor pub, (closed at their old places and supposed to have reopened at indiranagar) for their familiarity and the feel more than anything else. Just like the older Shankar movies had a lot of feel even with bizzare plots and treatment like jeans and OTT movies like anniyan. The same seem to be missing in his recent ones. One simply no longer cares about the characters. Just ends up being a visual extravaganza.

“Is Lakeview Milk Bar still around in MG Road? They were the first to introduce ‘sundaes’ to us plebians. My aspiration was to go there to eat the ‘Honeymoon Special’. Alas, I moved from Bangalore long before I got married.”

I have always been uncomfortable with the various elements that Shankar throws into his movies for shock value, which are not useful to the script in anyway. BR sir, has this occurred to you?

I am not opposed to sex or violence, as long as they are confined to adult movies and rated accordingly. But do only adults watch Shankar movies? Don’t children watch his movies? Chitti is pretty popular with kids I heard. For a director like Shankar always espousing the greater good in his movies, how does he get away with stuff like the below?

constant obsession with nudity and many such disturbing scenes – female freedom fighters stripped by the British, streaking in boys, the kids play area scene in gentleman, the horrifying scene in indian with the child (that has scarred me for life)…even kasthuri’s corpse in Indian is described as “pottu thuni illaama “
constant objectification of women – too many to list here; even a relatively more decent Shankar movie like mudhalvan has vadivelu putting his hand up a woman’s blouse in the very first scene
prison torture – boys, Kadhalan
gruesome deaths – gentleman

Don’t even get me started on the Angavai/sangavai track, the homophobia, the Vaadi parthasarathy type jokes, virginity test etc…..

Are other Tamil movies worse? Of course, but other directors don’t have the popularity and image that Shankar has. And they don’t attract family audiences (would you take your kids to a selvaraghavan movie?) how many of our kids have been exposed to all of the above shitty content and how many of us watched this as kids or young adults? Why do we accept this?